What if someone knew everything about you? Really,
everything. All the good and all the bad. What if someone knew the mean words
you thought but didn’t say this morning? Or the kind deed you were going to do
but didn’t because you were tired, or embarrassed, or because you forgot? What
if someone counted the number of times you looked in a mirror in a day, and
what if they knew how you thought about yourself–the times you approved of your
appearance, the times you wrinkled your nose at yourself? What if someone knew
the silly things that make you scared?

And what if someone knew when you went out of your way to
take care of someone else? What if someone knew the intimacies of your
bodies–every scar, every freckle, every crease and wrinkle? What if someone
knew your dreams, your hopes, your best thoughts?

How would you feel?

I used to read Psalm 139 and I would get swept away by the
language and the imagery, with lines like:

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 

You know when
I sit and when I rise; 

you perceive my thoughts from afar…” (verses 1-2)

or

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far
side of the sea, 

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold
me fast” (v 9-10)

What comfort, I thought, that God knows me and is with me.

But when I look at the Psalm a little more closely, I see
that the writer really means it. He’s not talking about a far-away God who acts
a little like a distant grandparent, eager to overlook our faults and give us
candy when we come to visit. This is a God who really knows us. Those words can
be words of comfort–You know everything
about me. Or they could be words that inspire fear–You know everything about me.

The Psalm is attributed to King David, and the history
written in other books of the Bible tell us all about David as a flawed human
being. David cursed. He murdered. He committed adultery. He was a bad father.
And he loved his God.

It’s all here in Psalm 139. He talks about running away from
God (v. 7-12). He talks about hating other people (v. 21-22). He admits to
anxious thoughts and offensive ways (v. 23-24).

And yet. And yet. In the midst of this messy human life,
comes the assurance of God’s favor:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my
mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”
(verse 14).

There is someone who knows it all–the messiness and the
beauty, the hatred and the loves, the running away and the turning back, the
failures and the successes, the pain and the joy. God knows it all. And in the
midst of it all, God says, “I made you. You are mine. You are beautiful. And I
love you.”